Operation Martian Rescue

Chapter One: A Limping Society

The sun was setting, and Kess wasn't safe in her home. Instead, she was running as fast as her all fours could carry her.

At night on Mars, it wasn't secure like Earth. Nothing on Mars was secure like Earth. Only the toughest survived in its harsh storms and devastating human invasions.

Yes. It used to be different. The Martian Dragons used to live along one another and agree. Earth was working on restoring Mars to become a more habitable planet.

But then a war on Earth broke out, WWIV as the humans called it, and then something happened.

The Martians were captured, treated like savages. The UAIL was no more, instead replaced by the GSAA. Didn't sound cool at all.

The GSAA were not fans of the Martians. Before long, they were hunting them at night to study and enslave them.

So now, as Kess was kicking up dust to get back to safety, she noticed searchlights scanning the ground.

I'm too late, she realized with horror. I have to hide for the night.

She'd been caught before. Only once. They tortured her with their studies. They interrogated her with questions about her home and her city. She was then thrown hard into a cell until her division could be found again. They treated her like a monster. Muzzle. Chains. One of her horns had snapped off in their experiments and hurt like there was no tomorrow.

She slid into the shadows of the darker alley, hoping the dust would settle down. She buried herself deeper into the sand, trying to camouflage. Her orange and green scales would have to hide her. Her fur was actually white, but it was covered in red dust. There was no way it'd be white ever again.

She heard clumsy footsteps approaching. Footsteps of humans, the deadly people who controlled in the worst ways possible.

They kicked up red sand in their threatening patrol, snorting at the pathetic metal domes Kess called her home. If she was caught again, she'd never see this place again. The thought made her throat sore, and her chest squeeze up in dread. One flashlight over her and she was a roast lizard for sure. After some searching, the light shined just over her head, and she gasped and ducked.

The flashlight went right to her.

She cried out, trying to run. She barely got a few feet forward when she fell over a tripwire.

They trapped it! She scrambled to her claws and tried running, but they had already fired the net. The spikes shot into the ground right by her claws, closing her in on the ground.

The red dust being kicked up seemed to settle in slow motion. She trembled, knowing it was not going to do her any good.

"She's a little one." One of the humans snorted. Her Universal was trash, but she still caught it under the garish mask.

The other had a voice even harder to follow. "Check her tag." They pulled on her ear where her tag was, showing where she was from and how many times she'd been inspected by humans.

"Take her back." The other ordered gruffly, and almost immediately, the net closed under her and she was lifted from the dusty ground in another puff of red.

"No!" She squeaked in her own language. It would only sound like a chortle to them.

They ignored her protest, carrying her down the dark streets of her home. It wasn't much in a visitor's eyes, but to her, it was everything.

And she was leaving that everything behind.